MINNETONKA, Minn. – The Concordia-St. Paul baseball team (11-7, 3-4 NSIC) dropped both games to Minnesota Crookston (12-7, 5-0 NSIC) on Sunday afternoon at Veterans Field. UMC took game one 5-4 before taking the second game 14-2 in seven innings.
 
With Concordia entering the day riding a 43-game winning streak dating back to 2003 in the series with the Golden Eagles, UMC claimed just their third doubleheader sweep ever against CSP. The two losses dropped the Golden Bears to 46-8 all-time against Minnesota Crookston.
 
GAME ONE: Minnesota Crookston 5, Concordia-St. Paul 4
The Golden Bears found themselves behind early in the first game of the series as they were forced to play catch-up the rest of the contest. CSP trimmed the margin to one in both the sixth and seventh but were unable to complete the comeback in a 5-4 loss.
 
Carter Schmidt and Ryan Christopher combined to score all four runs for Concordia as the duo each went 2-4 with a pair of runs scored while one of Schmidt's two hits was a triple. Patrick Bordewick added an RBI triple while Ben Suits and Tom Austin each chipped in sacrifice flies.
 
Louie Varland (2-2) did manage to tally nine strikeouts in his 5.0 innings but took the loss as he allowed four runs on seven hits in the outing. Connor Hurley added three strikeouts in his 2.0 innings out of the bullpen.
 
Reed Hjelle and Brock Reller each hit solo home runs while Travis Conoryea led the Golden Eagles with three hits in the win.
 
Zach Rustad (3-3) picked up the win on the mound as he worked the first 6.0 innings, allowing five hits and three runs (two earned) while striking out four. Dalton Grose picked up his fifth save of the year as he struck out three and allowed a run in his 1.0 inning of work.
 
The Golden Eagles opened the scoring with the long ball in the second inning as Brock Reller sent a 1-0, one-out pitch into a snowbank over the wall in center to make it 1-0 in favor of UMC.
 
Minnesota Crookston added to their advantage two innings later as they scored two more runs without a single hard hit ball in the inning. UMC loaded the bases with a pair of soft infield singles and a bloop single to shallow left before a wild pitch allowed the first run of the inning to score. After a walk re-loaded the bases, a hit by pitch pushed the lead to three.
 
The Golden Bears got one back in their half of the fourth on a Ben Suits sacrifice fly, but Minnesota Crookston answered right back to reclaim a three-run lead at 4-1 with a Reed Hjelle solo home run just out of the reach of Jake Steckler in left.
 
Concordia's offense was back at it again in the fifth and the sixth as they put single runs on the board in each inning to trim the deficit to one. In the fifth, Schmidt got the rally started as he lined a one-out single to right before stealing second one batter later. Bordewick followed with a triple into the left center gap to score Schmidt. In the sixth, CSP put runners on second and third with nobody out as Christopher singled and Kirchoff walked before a wild pitch moved both runners up. CSP was only able to push one run in, however, as the lone run came in on a Tom Austin sacrifice fly.
 
UMC added what proved to be a necessary insurance run in the top half of the seventh with a Travis Conoryea run-scoring single to extend it to 5-3.
 
Schmidt opened up the bottom of the inning with a triple before Isaac Hormann drew a walk to bring the winning run to the plate with nobody out. After back-to-back strikeouts, a wild pitch closed the gap back to one at 5-4 while putting the tying run in scoring position. Another strikeout brought an end to the contest as Grose held on for the save.
 
GAME TWO: Minnesota Crookston 14, Concordia-St. Paul 2 (7 inn.)
Minnesota Crookston jumped ahead early again in the second game before pulling away from there. UMC scored multiple runs in five of the final six innings of the game to cruise to a 14-2 victory and a sweep of the day.
 
Reed Hjelle and Brock Reller picked up where they left off in the first game as Hjelle hit his second and third homers of the day while Reller added a second. It was nearly an even bigger day for Hjelle as Jake Steckler leaped over the left field fence and robbed him of another home run in the fifth.
 
CSP finished the game with four hits as Patrick Bordewick and Ryan Bastyr both doubled while Kyle Horstmann and Jeffrey Kressler each chipped in pinch-hit singles.
 
Zach Lauzon (1-1) picked up his first loss of 2019 as he lasted 4.0 innings with six strikeouts on the afternoon. Ross Bastyr, TJ Johnson and Nate Stolte all pitched in relief in the loss.
 
Jayden Grover (3-2) allowed just two hits and two runs to grab the win for the Golden Eagles as he tacked on four strikeouts in 6.0 innings.
 
The Golden Eagles opened the scoring with a two-run shot off the bat of Reller in the second before Bastyr doubled home Kirchoff in the bottom of the frame to cut it to 2-1.
 
Hjelle added two more to the lead with a two-run homer of his own in the third to make it 4-1 before an RBI groundout for Christopher in the fourth pulled the margin back to within two.
 
It was all UMC from there, however, as Minnesota Crookston scored three in the fifth, four in the sixth and three more in the seventh to bring the run rule into effect.
 
The two teams will wrap up the weekend series tomorrow with a single nine-inning game at 3:30 p.m. at Veterans Field.